The present invention relates to a method and system for providing photofinishing services for consumer imaging, including the processing of silver-halide based color photographic films.
Two types of light-recording materials are used to record photographic images. One type of material is silver halide used in conventional imaging systems, the other type is silicon-based used in the newer electronic imaging systems. Within the silver halide-based imaging system there are two general use categories. One of these use categories is the film-based systems for camera use and the other is the paper-based systems used in printers. Within these use-categories are standardized processing cycles and associated processing hardware that convert the recorded silver-halide image into a useable image. For color negative still photography such a standardized processing cycle is Process C-41. For reversal still photography such a standardized processing cycle is Process E-6. For color negative motion imaging photography, such a process is Process ECN-2. In the context of this historical hierarchy and standardization, a family of films would be all films that are intended to be processed using a specific, standard processing cycle. For example, all color negative films for still photography represent a family of films that are to be processed within the trade reference Process C-41.
Film manufacturers formulate their products to provide satisfactory results using such standardized process cycles even though optimum performance for a particular film formulation may be achieved under different conditions than obtained in a standardized process cycle. Addition of accelerators for development (U.S. Pat. No. 6,319,660 issued Nov. 20, 2001 to Allway et al.); accelerators for bleaching (EP 0 193 389 B2, published Mar. 15, 1995); and accelerators for fixing (U.S. Pat. No. 5,633,124 issued May 27, 1997 to Schmittou et al.), witness the problems that film manufacturers have faced in order to get a given film formulation to conform to the standardized process. Clearly, film manufacturers would welcome a processing cycle wherein the process cycle and perhaps even the processing solution compositions are defined by them in order to optimize the performance of a given film formulation.
However, these processing cycles and associated hardware are slow to change at a time when more rapid response to marketplace changes is important to remain competitive. For example, over the years, the turnaround time for a customer using color negative film to receive their photographic prints from a photofinisher has undergone a steady improvement from several days to overnight service and presently to 1 hour service. The advent of digital photography has reduced the time from image capture to viewing to a matter of seconds. To remain competitive with digital photography, it would be desirable to further reduce the processing turnaround time for consumer photographic color negative film systems to provide an essentially real time photofinishing order fulfillment system.
The KODAK C-41 Process is described in British Journal of Photography Annual 1988, pages 196-198. This trade standard chemical process uses a development time of 195 seconds at a temperature of 100xc2x0 F. and produces an archival negative that is optically printable. Over the years, the time in the post-development solutions has been shortened such that the current minilab process (Process C-41 SM) requires 7 minutes; 15 seconds to process film with an additional 1 to 2 minutes to dry the film. Clearly, near real time order fulfillment processing must process film more rapidly than this trade reference process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,896 issued Nov. 23, 1999 to Edgar, proposes a photographic negative film processing system and method that is capable of operating near real time by using a non-conventional chemical development process and scanning of the non-conventionally developed silver in the film. Some problems with this approach are that the processing method is not generally useful for all types of color negative film structures that are currently in use and that useful photographic negatives are not produced in the process.
It would be desirable to provide a method that can accommodate standard film processes and that also returns conventional film negatives in near real time. Conventional color negative film development processes include the C-41 process useable with Kodak, Fuji, Konica, Lucky and Ferrania films, the AP 70 process useable with Agfa films, the CN-16 process useable with Fuji films; and the CNK-4 process useable with Konica films. All of these processes are variations of the C-41 process.
The basic image-forming process of color silver halide photography comprises the exposure of a silver halide color photographic recording material to actinic radiation (such as light) and the manifestation of a useful image by wet chemical processing of the material. The fundamental steps of this wet processing include color development to reduce silver halide to silver and to produce dye images in the color-developed areas of the material. After color development, the silver is removed by a combination of one or more processing steps in which the metallic silver is oxidized by a bleaching agent to silver(I) (referred to as xe2x80x9cbleachingxe2x80x9d), and silver(I) and any undeveloped silver halide is removed by dissolving it in a silver solvent, commonly known as a fixing agent (referred to as xe2x80x9cfixingxe2x80x9d). In some photographic processes, bleaching and fixing are combined in a bleach-fixing step using a composition that includes both a bleaching agent to oxidize metallic silver and a fixing agent to dissolve the remaining silver ion. In some process sequences, a treatment with an acidic stop solution or a stop-fixer solution follows development to stop the action of the developing agent. Subsequent to this treatment, the desilvering steps of fixing, bleaching, and/or bleach-fixing are carried out. In other process sequences, the bleach or bleach-fixing treatment immediately follows development. Following these post development steps is a washing step to remove water soluble materials from the film.
Several general approaches have been followed to shorten the process cycle. One approach is to use rapid processing of a photographic film such that the negative produced is not useful in an optical photographic printer, but can be scanned to produce a useful digital image and the digital image processed to produce an acceptable print using a digital printer. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 5,804,356, issued Sep. 8, 1998 to Cole et al. A problem with the rapid processing approach as described is that a fixed process cycle is used for all members of the film family. The total processing time for each film is thereby limited to the member of the film family requiring the longest film processing time to produce stable film densities that can be mapped by subsequent digital processing to the densities produced by the conventional film process. If the process times were to be set to run faster than that required for the member of the film family requiring the longest processing times, the densities produced by that member of the film family would not be stable, thereby resulting in incorrect mapping of densities to the conventional process. An incorrect mapping of densities will result in color errors in a color photographic print. As used herein, a stable density is one obtained from repeatable development conditions that are substantially free of density changes that might occur if the post development steps associated with the processing profile are extended in time.
Another approach is to shorten the process times by increasing the temperature of the solutions. Process QD-21 from Konica is an example of this approach. The development time is reduced to 100 seconds and the total wet time is 3 minutes, 38 seconds by running the process at 106.3xc2x0 F., with an additional drying time of about 45 seconds for a total dry-to-dry time of about 4 xc2xd minutes. However, this approach although yielding an archival negative, is a fixed cycle that uses high solution volumes that must be heated, thereby incurring increased power usage. Additionally, it is desirable to further reduce the dry-to-dry time for near real time processing.
Yet another approach is to reduce the number of processing steps in the process cycle. In these cases one or more of the processing steps are eliminated from the process cycle. Such rapid process cycles are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,221,569 issued Apr. 24, 2001 to Ishikawa, U.S. Pat. No. 6,207,360 issued Mar. 27, 2001 to Ishikawa et al.; EP 1 107 058 A2, Ishikawa et al., published Jun. 13, 2001; U.S. Pat. No. 5,804,356, referenced above, JP11-184053, JP11-109583 and references cited therein. All of these process cycles can be characterized as providing alternative processing of films. The processes are described as new approaches using single time and temperature conditions to effect film development. However, these alternative process cycles do not return an archival film negative to the consumer.
Using conventional continuous photographic film processing machines and employing conventional processing chemistry the turnaround time can be reduced by changing transport speed of the film through the processing solutions. However, this approach does not allow each processing bath to operate independently of the other processing baths, thereby reducing the ability to optimize the overall processing time for different members of the film family, since some members of the film family require more time in one or more of the processing baths than other members of that film family.
Batch film processors wherein each processing step may be adjusted independently have been described. See for example U.S. Ser. No. 09/920,495, filed Aug. 1, 2001 by Twist et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,890,028 issued Mar. 30, 1999 to Nomura et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,227, issued Sep. 28, 1999 to Kurokawa et al. In addition, a continuous processor such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,864,729 issued Jan. 26, 1999 to Piccinino, Jr. et al. allows the time that each bath contacts the media to be adjusted independently of the other baths. The use of these processors has been taught in the context of a common film process for a given film family. For the color negative film family, a problem with this approach is that some members of the color negative film family can be processed faster than other members of this same family. Alternatively, some members of this color negative film family can be processed with less processing chemistry or at lower temperature than other members. If the single process is designed such that all members of the film family are acceptably processed, the total time for processing, or the amount of processing chemistry, or the necessary processing temperature will be determined by the member that requires the longest time, the most chemistry, or the highest temperature, thereby limiting the ability to achieve near real time, chemistry conserving, or energy efficient processing.
There is a need therefore for an improved negative photographic film processing system and method that avoids the problems noted above.
The need is met according to the present invention by providing a system and method of processing photographic film images, that includes providing a film processor having a plurality of adjustable parameters for a given process for processing a family of photographic films, defining a plurality of processing profiles having different values of the adjustable parameters for different members of the film family, and chemically processing a photographic film that is a member of the film family using the processing profile for that family member.
The system and method of the present invention have the advantages of reducing the time required to process photographic films, in particular color negative photographic films. In a preferred embodiment the process provides a stable film image that can be reused. Alternatively to reducing processing time, processing speed advantages of certain films can be traded for reductions in chemical usage, or energy usage in the process by processing such certain films with less chemistry or at lower temperature.
FIG. 1 is a plot of a characteristic curve for a single color record useful in explaining the present invention,
FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of a system useful in performing the method of the present invention; and
FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating the steps of the present invention.